The following editorial originally appeared in The Seattle Times:
It is the stuff of science fiction: artificial intelligence mimicking human thought.
Is that a good or bad thing? Does it portend a future where workers are free of the most mundane tasks or an era of massive unemployment where even poetry, music and art is churned out of data centers?
When it comes to AI, parameters of the debate are hard to define. There is much at stake.
As such, it is worthwhile to review a reflection published by Pope Francis last month titled: “Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence.”
Among the observations:
- “ … as AI models become increasingly capable of independent learning, the ability to maintain control over them to ensure that such applications serve human purposes may effectively diminish. This raises the critical question of how to ensure that AI systems are ordered for the good of people and not against them.”
- “AI is currently eliminating the need for some jobs that were once performed by humans. If AI is used to replace human workers rather than complement them, there is a ‘substantial risk of disproportionate benefit for the few at the price of the impoverishment of many.’ ”
- “Individual users, families, civil society, corporations, institutions, governments, and international organizations should work at their proper levels to ensure that AI is used for the good of all.”
Executives at Microsoft — which has invested tens of billions of dollars into AI — joined with venture capitalists to create a company blog post on the subject just days before the November election.
